PETALING JAYA: National singles coaching director Kenneth Jonassen did not mince his words as he openly expressed his disappointment with Malaysia’s top men’s singles shuttler Leong Jun Hao over his poor showing in Europe.
Jun Hao fell 14-21, 21-18, 16-21 to world No. 62 Sankar Subramanian of India in the first round of the Hylo Open in Saarbrucken, Germany.
The defeat brought a dismal end to his European campaign, which also saw him suffer early exits at the Denmark Open and French Open.
To make matters worse, the loss in Germany marked his fourth straight defeat since the Korean Open in September.
Jonassen revealed that Jun Hao’s main weaknesses are inconsistency and a lack of physical conditioning and endurance needed to match the world’s elite.
Currently ranked No. 22 in the world, Jun Hao is the highest-placed Malaysian men’s singles player, ahead of Lee Zii Jia and Ng Tze Yong, who are both recovering from injuries.
“It was a disappointing result and performance, but he never gave up and kept fighting until the end.
“However, it clearly exposed his inconsistency and the number of unforced errors he made even when he was in attacking positions.
“In terms of overall fitness, he’s still not at the level required, and his opponents know this and use it to their advantage.
“At the Denmark and French Opens, we faced world-class opponents, and to stay competitive at that level, players must perform at their maximum.
“But today’s match (at the Hylo Open) highlighted a major issue I’ve noticed over the past 10 months which is inconsistency. What I can say is that Jun Hao did not pass the test over the last three weeks,” said Jonassen.
This year, the Kuala Lumpur-born shuttler has not enjoyed many noteworthy achievements, although he did manage to upset several top players, including Jonatan Christie of Indonesia, Kodai Naraoka of Japan and Li Shifeng of China.
However, issues such as inconsistency and his tendency to start slow in matches have continued to haunt him on court.
With his European campaign now over, Jun Hao has less than two weeks to regroup and improve ahead of the Kumamoto Masters in Japan from Nov 11-16.
